The British television shows he appeared in are little known in the U.S., as are the movies he appeared in. Surprisingly, he now has a role in the American television show Frasier. That’s probably the only thing that most American viewers know him for.
He was in “New Tricks”, right? (One of the later season replacements.)
That’s where I became aware of him. Very good at deadpan.
Well then, nice to be able to tell the story of a Frazier actor’s granddad! 
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There was also a thriving early movie industry in Holmfirth in Yorkshire, which much more recently is known as the setting of the long-running sitcom (or Elderly Actors’ Pension Fund) Last of the Summer Wine.
Tabby, a common and perhaps original color pattern in cats, is derived from a silk manufacturing area of Baghdad, Attabiya, which was named for the 5th century Umayyad governor of Mecca, Attab Ibn Asid, The name for this distinctively patterned silk from there made its way through Latin and medieval French to English by the late 17th century.
Two factors that cause time dilation in General Relativity are gravity and an object’s speed. If you are at the equator you are moving more quickly than someone at a more northerly or southerly latitude. However the Earth is not a perfect sphere so the amount of gravity a person experiences also differs depending on your latitude.
It turns out that these two factors exactly cancel each other out so time dilation is uniform across the entirety of Earth’s surface at sea level.
That’s good to know. A while back, someone here linked to the Phrontistery website, full of obscure words including this list of fabrics. Unfortunately without their word origins.
Similarly damask fabric, and damascene patterning of fabric and steel, derive that name from Damascus.
It’s not clear they were invented there, more likely it is where Europeans first came across it - in the same way they call numbers Arabic numerals when they came to Italy from North Africa, even though they were invented in India. They are called Hindi numerals in Arabic.
From Wikipedia, three rabbit islands: Spain, Coney Island, and Japan.
“The etymological origin of the term Hispania is uncertain, although the Phoenicians referred to the region as Spania (meaning "Land of rabbits, therefore, the most accepted theory is the Phoenician one.”
“One possible etymology is from a Native American tribe, the Konoh or Konoi (the “Bear Band”), who once inhabited the island. A second theory suggests that it was distortion of the name of Henry Hudson’s second mate on the Halve Maen, John Colman, who was slain by natives on the 1609 expedition. A third posits that late 18th century Irish captain Peter O’Connor named it after Coney Island in County, Ireland, which has a rabbit population. In Irish ‘coinín’ (kun een) is the word used for a rabbit.”
Ōkunoshima, Japan. “ It is often called Usagi Shima (うさぎ島, “Rabbit Island”) because of the large population of free-ranging domestic rabbits that roam the island. The rabbits are rather tame and will approach humans.”
Not a coincidence, of course. Time dilation is a result of the gravitational potential. Sea level is an equipotential surface, because if any part of it were at a higher potential, it’d flow to the lower-potential spots. So any two spots at sea level will have the same time dilation.
Barack Obama and Kamala Harris are not the first people with significant non-European ancestry to have reached the the office of President or VP.
Vice President Charles Curtis (1929 - '33) was three-eighths Native American through his mother and an enrolled member of the Kaw (Kansa) nation, speaking Kansa and English while growing up.
I work for an electric company and a co-worker who was known for his BS’ing swore that at one time, workers would walk around the coal plant waving a flag around to detect steam leaks. I never actually believed him but I guess it might have been true.
Martin Van Buren grew up speaking Dutch.
Yesterday I learned that Brent Strom is the pitching coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Strom was the second man to undergo Tommy John surgery.
Were it not for Tommy John, it might be called Brent Strom surgery.
A high pressure superheated “live” steam leak is near invisible and can seriously injure you. I have read that ship’s engine room crews also use similar methods of detecting steam leaks when you can hear that it’s escaping but can’t see exactly where.
They could always do what physicists do when looking for leaks in pressurized pipe systems – squirt soapy water and look for any bubbles forming.
Also used to find leaks in car tires
Or bike tires, though there it’s often easier to submerge the whole thing in the bathtub.
After I installed our gas dryer, my gf was concerned that maybe I should have called a pro. When a friend of mine was visiting, having a beer, she asked him if he’d check out my dryer installation (he’s a plumber).
He gave me a wink and we all went to the basement. I’d checked the connections using soapy water and was certain everything was OK, plus I couldn’t smell gas. He checked with his Bic lighter, running the flame around all my connections.